Any regular shopper at Shoprite would have noticed that there are fewer workers manning the various pay points at the store at Dugbe, the situation is also the same at the newly opened store at Ring Road, which is the biggest Shoprite store in West Africa.

At the store in Cocoa Mall Dugbe, only one-third of the pay points is manned by workers while workers can only pay at half of the pay points at Shoprite store in Ibadan Mall, Ring Road.

Although no official of the store agreed to speak on record, an informal chat with one of the workers revealed the management of the store is attempting to fully maximise its current members of staff by manning both outlets with minimal workers that are just enough for operations.

“It is not just the cashiers that are affected, others are also involved in the process. If you look at the kitchen section, you would notice that very few workers are there now, some have been moved to Ring Road,” he said.

Customers are already noticing this and they are accusing the stores of taking its customers for granted and allowing them to stay for long on queues.

“Imagine the long queues we have to endure when they can just let us pay at the pay points that are not manned. If they don’t have enough workers, they should recruit. They shouldn’t frustrate us and make us eat what we’ve bought before even making payment,” a concerned customer told IBPulse.com

However, the Shoprite staff said the queues aren’t unbearable as the customers are presenting them to be.

“The only reason why they are complaining is because they see some pay points vacant. And for God’s sake, I don’t think you will spend more than 5 minutes on a queue and if you are really in a hurry, you can talk to any member of staff and they’ll help you out,” he said.

Source: http://ibpulse.com/2014/08/shoprite-reduces-workforce-in-ibadan.html

True that, the queues are not nearly as bad as some customers claim though. I think they need more aisle attendants or re-train their workers so they'll learn how to really assist customers. Why won't they downsize when they all just walk about aimlessly!